According to the International Organization for Migration, about 200 migrants were onboard a boat that burned and sank on Saturday, hours after departing Senegal for the Canary Islands.
The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations organization, stated on Thursday that at least 140 passengers perished when a boat carrying migrants sunk off the Senegalese coasts over the weekend in the world's deadliest shipwreck this year.
The vessel had already left Mbour, a maritime town in western Senegal, headed for the Canary Islands on Saturday with around 200 migrants. According to the organization, a few moments later, however, it caught fire and capsized in the Atlantic Ocean near St. Louis, on the northwest coast of Senegal.
As per the International Organization for Migration that quoted news accounts, the Senegalese and Spanish naval vessels and local fishermen tried to retrieve 59 migrants and recover the bodies of 20 others.
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The organization stated that it was profoundly saddened by the shipwreck that occurred after four migrant-carrying ships sunk last week in the Central Mediterranean, and the other sank in the English Channel.
"We call for unity between governments, partners, and the international community to dismantle trafficking and smuggling networks that take advantage of desperate youth," the agency's chief of mission in Senegal, Bakary Doumbia, said in a comment.
"It is also important that we advocate for enhanced legal channels to undermine the traffickers' business model and prevent loss of life," Doumbia added.
According to the International Organization for Migration, the shipping mishap happened as the number of immigrants attempting the risky sea crossing from West Africa to the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago, has risen dramatically in recent weeks.
This year, nearly 11,000 migrants entered the Canary Islands, opposed to 2,557 over the same time last year, the organization said. At least 414 people, up from 210 last year, perished along the way, the organization stated.
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Dame Mbengue informed the Senegalese news media that he was one of the migrants on board the boat. Before the fire spread to cans of fuel, the crew struggled to subdue the flames avoiding a major explosion. He added that he had jumped into the ocean and hung onto a can that had been floating in the water until the traveling boaters saved him.
In September alone, 14 boats containing 663 migrants, including 42 girls, left Senegal for the Canary Islands, the UN agency reported. Approximately a quarter of the boats sunk or had other issues recorded.
The Senegalese military said that it had seized two long canoes earlier this month, known as pirogues, filled with 186 migrants who had also been attempting to enter Spain.
Benjamin N. Lawrance, an instructor of history at the University of Arizona who interacted with West African migrants, stated that hardship and high unemployment drove numerous people, mostly in small fishing boats that are not seaworthy, to flee West Africa for Europe.
In July, more than 1,000 migrants from Libya have landed as people flee from poverty in their country that the Italian island of Lampedusa is close to its breaking point.
Earlier this August, Greek officials stranded 1,072 refugees on inflatable life rafts at the edge of Greece's water territory.
